Oh dear, the new Mac Pro desktop is a lovely machine. No really it is and I would be happy to have one if I had silly amounts of extra cash and actually needed something that can do all that the new Mac can However, the advertising for it is stuck in the usual hidden-in-plain sight satanic imagery rut that nearly everything is subjected to these days. Yeah, I know, its a sign of the times.

Is there not something more wholesome Apple could suggest people can do with those powerful computers? Do we have to use them to render nasty evil and satanic images? Come on Apple, nice product but how about leading on the spiritual front as well as on the design and technical eh?

I was interested to look at pictures of the recent tragic bridge collapse. Here are what it seems to me may be of significance and some questions to be answered. First lets look at what is where before it happened.

This photo is before the collapse taken from the side on which the central reservation chevrons face away from the camera on both sides of the bridge, which at this stage is still being moved into position. Note that in the central highway lane on the side of the highway that has lighting poles along the outer margin, there is no crane where I have arrowed down. Along the top of the bridge there are various areas where apparently bolts go through the roof to the upper side. I have circled a couple of these areas. These bolts presumably hold the supporting diagonal braces in position. It appears as if the tension and compression forces in the supporting diagonal braces are either compression or tension and may be directed as per the arrows I have drawn on them, I say appears, I am not an engineer.

You can check out in the view above that there is no crane of the side of the bridge on the side to which the central reservation chevrons point. There is some sort of yellow/orange crane boom arm just visible on the opposite side in the top left corner of the photo, but no crane on the right. The bridge is being rolled into position above the main reinforced concrete legs.

Now look at the still approaching from the side to which the chevrons point, immediately before the collapse. On the left of the still you see the white boom arm of a crane. It was not there when the earlier pictures were taken during the positioning of the bridge onto its legs, and the white boom arm is different to the small area of yellow/orange arm pictured earlier standing on the opposite side to the crane that is shown on the immediately preceeding collapse image above.

Here above we see the white boom arm crane closer, immediately before the collapse. See it is doing something on the roof of the bridge, near those important bolts.

Now above we are maybe less than one second away from the collapse. Is that a guy up there at the hook end of the crane on the roof doing something? It looks like there is something large and so possibly heavy on the end of the lifting cable.

Now above the moment of collapse. Whatever the crane was holding swings violently as the bridge beneath it collapses. Below, is that a man falling?

Below, a frame later, what/whoever is falling has fallen down further in relation to the boom arm. The person or object is definitely lower and so is falling.

Above you can see finally dangling, whatever is left of something large on the end of that crane hook. It is as wide as the supporting diagonal inside the bridge. Maybe quite heavy then. See the chevrons by the way?

So, below now we are after the collapse. There is no sign anywhere of the crane with the white boom arm. There is a green mobile elevating work platform which was not there during the collapse.

Here are my questions:

What was the white boom arm crane doing?

Did someone fall with the roof from on top where the crane was working during the collapse?

Why has the white boom arm crane been removed, surely this is vital evidence and needs to be left in place for forensic investigation?

Did the directions of forces transmitted in the strangely asymmetrically braced bridge design have any bearing on the collapse?

And of course there is that phone call voicemail about cracks from the engineer that wasn’t collected until the day after the collapse. But please don’t let that be the main question, because as I show above, there are other questions also.

These appear to be four old runway (reflector?) signs. They are along the road at the point where Rochford Road becomes Southend Road (the A1169) beside the railway bridge at Southend Airport (in the county of Essex, UK) – Latitude 51.5668, Longitude 0.7041 – over which I think the southern end of the old cross-runway (no longer used) was approached by aircraft.

I don’t know but guess they either date from 1935 when the airfield become a civilian airport, or after World War II which would mean after 1945. I favour the former as they look very old. They could be any time from 1914 when the airfield was first established by the military shortly after the beginning of World War I. In 1919 the airfield was sold off to the Navarro Aviation Company who ran pleasure flights with two old Avro biplanes – apparently not for long however as the airfield was disused from 1920 to 1935, having reverted to farmland.

Perhaps they would not have had such obvious signs during World War II as airfields were camouflaged and signs removed, which would favour them being post-WWII, but they might be older – 1935? – and have been removed during WWII then replaced.

Of course the airfield was used as a fighter base during WWII but after that, in 1946, Southend Corporation took it on as an airport which they opened in 1947. There was major re-building including a control tower and runways in 1955. Perhaps the posts date from 1955, but to my eyes they look too old for that. Although maybe the pairs of red beacon lights went on in 1955.

Some paired red lights were stuck on to of them at some stage, these are also now defunct. They were also apparently used to mount streetlights. I don’t know if these lights still function, possibly not.

My best guess is these posts originate around 1935. They could have been actually erected between 1933 when the airport site was purchased by Southend Council and when it opened in 1935.

Whilst I do not find Essex and Southend the nicest places in the UK, I will put in a good word for Rochford. What a lovely village (although it is really now a suburb of Southend) – olde-world shops, buildings, pubs. Good parking. Southend Airport also looked nice, which is pretty weird for an airport. Apparently it has in recent years been voted best Airport in the UK three times and it has a dedicated railway station. I think I would like Southend as an airport and Rochford is worth a visit if you are in that neck of the woods.

There have been number of cinemas in Leicester called Odeon, indeed there is still one. However the one I spotted has not played a movie in a very long while, and it has certainly seen better days. There have been various plans for this old cinema, which have not yet come to fruition. Here was one such plan from Studio Four Architects https://studiofourarchitects.com/odeon-arcade-leicester/

It was very hard to get an angle to include the frontage. There is something I like about this old building. I don’t much like the plans Studio Four had for it. Maybe the rendering on their website is just a low-res model, but if losing the windows and surface textures of the building is what Studio Four really had in mind, then no. They do say “whilst preserving a traditional façade on one side of the development” so hard to tell really. I think the detail on that façade is all the building has left now. The interior at ground level is long gone. What is upstairs I could not get access to. Perhaps there are former glories still inside up there, perhaps not – I could not tell. An estate agent (realtor) website says “The property comprises a retail arcade with former Odeon cinema above set over basement and 5 floors.” On another site here http://www.auction.co.uk/residential/data/full_text/may2017/pos231.pdf
there are clues that there perhaps is still a cinema upstairs.

This NOT the famous Leicester Athena, former 1930’s modernist Odeon building.

A cinema history website at https://www.foxestalk.co.uk/topic/104842-leicesters-40-lost-cinemas-do-you-remember-any-of-these/ says: “Odeon Cinema, Marketplace – This started off life in 1924 as the City Cinema, with The Covered Wagon the first film to be screen there. It had 2,200 seats in stalls and circle, an Apollo organ and also a cafe. But it was closed in April 1964 and the auditorium was demolished. Six months later a new cinema was built behind the original facade. The ground floor was the shopping arcade that you can still visit today, and the cinema was the on the first floor. It was notable for its 70mm presentations on the curved screen which measured 45ft wide by 26ft high. It became a ‘roadshow’ cinema, a term used by the film industry for cinemas where films opened in a limited number of cities for a limited time before they went on national release. And the The Sound of Music had a two year run at the cinema. But on May 31, 1975, the cinema closed. It then briefly became an independent movie house called the Liberty Cinema which screened Bollywood films. Since then, it has been used as a bingo club, amusement arcade and a music venue.”

Hey ho, I took a visit to the National Gas Museum <– click for their website. Yeah, sounds crazy but it is a really interesting tiny museum in the UK city of Leicester (famous for red cheese). IMHO it’s actually one of the best museums in England. Size isn’t everything.

Now BE CAREFUL if you want to visit about whether they are REALLY open. The website might say they are, but the curator has been known to go away and close the museum and not update the website. Phone ahead and ask a human. I drove 100 miles to be there, having checked the website, to be told they were closed for that very reason! However a kind volunteer happened to be there and allowed me to have a private viewing. Wow. Megathanks.

I have only put a very few photos – you need to go see it. They have a Gas Powered radio. Yep there is such a thing (but no photo here – no spoilers).

Sometimes the spiritual radar just looks at something and instinctively knows it isn’t right in some way. Fidget spinners for instance. What is it about those eh?

Well they are infantile toys that don’t exactly encourage the adult in us for a start. The Bible says “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” – 1 Corinthians 13:11 KJV.

They encourage a repetitive meaningless movement, a distraction and an addiction – a nasty habit like chewing gum or smoking. In Titus 2 throughout, we read about the need for self-control – the very antithesis of addictions and compulsions, which fidget toys serve only to develop. “Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;” – Titus 2:12 KJV.

There are also those little titanium spinning tops, another “executive” toy. Now really, and not that they are models we should look up to, but do you seriously think that “executives” spend their time fiddling in their offices with expensive silly toys? Stop and think about the language there too. “Executive” – what is an executive? An executive is the somewhat more junior director that has the job of telling even more junior people (managers) what to do. The non-execs, presidents and chairs get to do the thinking and are actually the more senior. None of them of course play with toys because they are adults, and the execs and managers are too busy for the playground anyway. The toys are for the really junior people, the working class proles that are sufficiently lacking in understanding to perceive that using the word “executive” is just a way of dressing up the toy so they can feel it is acceptable, perhaps even aspirational, to buy what is actually a time-wasting distracting habit. The devil just loves it when you get hooked on some time-wasting habitual pointless distraction.

Now here’s a thing. You will have heard of prayer wheels, the things that non-Christian religions like Buddhism spin round in a paganistic ritual to repetitively send their incantations to… well not the real God so it must be the other guy. Did you know that they put prayers on hard drives so they get “sent” as they spin? So, what about those fidget spinners and little metal spinning tops, do you suppose that some satanic folks might have attached their bad prayers to them, for hapless “kidults” to unwittingly propagate their incantations?

Oh of course I am talking nonsense right? Well check out what is behind the Driedel (Jewish top); the spinning top amongst the toys used by the Titans to allure and kill Dionysus (about as Orphically “underworld” as you could want); the shoji piece spinning top; the human danza de los volodores; the British Maypole dances, the use of a spinning top in the movie “Inception” has led to people experimenting with the highly dangerous practice of inducing lucid dreams to rely on spinning tops as a “reality check” (think Hatha/Raja yoga meditation’s chitta kaj). Now I could go on, but really, it isn’t just me, just Google “spinning top satanic” and you will get over 64,000 hits.

I discovered this beautiful American dinosaur, that died a long way from home. Digging in the internet I believe it is a 1964 (or 65/66) Ford Thunderbird Coupe. It sits decaying at Brampton Hut Premier Inn motel car park on the junction of the A1 and A14 at Huntingdon UK. It is so sad to see such an aesthetically pleasing and obviously classic American car in such a stripped condition. Clearly all the external parts of any use as souvenirs or restoration parts for other autos have been taken, so restoring this old giant would be a difficult task. The paint color is I believe called Silver Monk. Who knows who owned it or why they left it there? Probably an airman from one of the many local USAF airbases. I suppose it will eventually be carted away to a scrap yard. I hope someone sees it and decides to restore it. Fully restored it could be worth 20,000 UK Pounds if sold here in England I would estimate. You can see more about the Ford Thunderbird cars at https://www.hagerty.com/apps/valuationtools/1964-ford-thunderbird The jack-frost on the trunk (UK readers say “boot”) has made patterns. So sad such a beautiful old automobile may be lost. It probably could tell a tale of the cold war and the many good times we in Britain have had with our visiting American cousins. A lovely poignant thing.

UPDATE: I went there again. When you have looked below, click here for more: Thunderbird 2